The Supreme Court yesterday decided to hear two appeal petitions filed by the Attorney General against the acquittal of former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando and former Inspector General of Police Pujith Jayasundara in the case referred to the Colombo High Court for not taking action to prevent the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks despite receiving intelligence information.
Accordingly, it was decided to complete the hearing of the petition within 5 days after it began on June 4.
These appeal petitions were taken up before the five-member Supreme Court Bench consisting of Justices Preethi Padman Surasena, Yasantha Kodagoda, Kumuduni Wickramasinghe, Mahinda Samayawardena and Arjuna Obeysekera.
Senior Additional Solicitor General Priyantha Navana who appeared as the petitioner Attorney General, stated that a case had been filed before the High Court under 855 charges, including failure to prevent the terrorist attacks that occurred on Easter Sunday, against the two accused separately.
The Senior Additional Solicitor General informed the Court that he is expected to present these petitions before the Court under five legal points against the order to acquit the accused without calling the defence evidence.
The senior Additional Solicitor General told the Court that some pages of the file and some documents related to the case are missing.
Accordingly, he agreed before the bench to look into the facts regarding the missing copies and compare them with the main case file.
The Chairman of the five-judge panel, Justice Preethi Padman Surasena, who considered the facts, said that the hearing of this petition will be conducted daily continuously and it is expected to be completed within 5 days.
Accordingly, the petition hearing was scheduled to be held on the 4th, 5th, 6th, 11th and 12th of July.
Although two judgments of the High Court had been declared against these defendants separately, the bench decided to declare one judgment in relation to both of these appeal petitions.
Accordingly, the Attorney General was ordered to file the written statements related to the petitions on or before the 30th of May, and the written statements of the respondents were ordered to be filed three weeks after that.